Chasing the best deal for health: medical tourism has patients leaving the state while local health-care providers aim to attract patients to Colorado.

• Author: Melani, Debra
• Position: HEALTH CARE

With four black belts in his closet and a mountain bike worth more than the car in his garage, Alan Hesker never dreamed a hip disorder would sideline him at age 46. The single father also never imagined that, with a good job and health insurance, the out-of-pocket expenses for the surgery he needed to get back in the bike saddle would be more than he could afford.

"I still would have been left holding a bill for three or four grand," said the father of twin 11-year-old girls. "It might not sound like much to some people, but when you're a single dad, that's a lot of money," said Hesker, an employee of MDC Holdings in Denver.

He put the surgery off for more than a year, until the pain finally pushed him through his human-resources director's doors. But she had yet another surprise for Hesker: If he were willing to hoard a plane for another state, she told him, he could have his hip replacement without paying a dime, travel expenses included.

Hesker was ready to pack his bags.

The Lafayette resident became one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans joining the medical-tourism trend each year. But rather than traveling to a faraway foreign country to save a few dollars, or finding a beach resort to recuperate on, Hesker was able to have his surgery closer to home.

At least three Denver-area medical-tourism companies launched between 2007 and 2009, when predictions were that the industry was set to explode. All are still sending U.S. patients overseas, to such countries as Mexico, India, Costa Rica and Panama for everything from dental crowns and tummy tucks to weight-loss surgeries and in-vitro fertilization. But at least two of them are responding to the slower-than-expected growth with a change of direction.

Destination: USA

"The first couple of years, we focused on international medical travel, but we felt we weren't getting the attraction we wanted," said Vic Lazzaro. CEO of BridgeHealth Medical in Greenwood Village. "In late 2010, we started building our domestic network," Lazzaro said. "Since then, we've been growing at a relatively rapid pace."

Today, BridgeHealth has 3 million-plus members, with about 140,000 employer members and 30 domestic providers across the country. The company supplies employers with a network of health-care providers who offer medical procedures at a flat, reduced rate.

Patients who choose international travel reap bigger savings: A September report by the National Center for Policy Analysis compared a...